Since the discovery that titanium can fuse to bone, titanium dental implants have represented a growing field of dental reconstruction technology for replacing natural teeth. During implantation, a hole is drilled through the bone after the tissue has been retracted or through the gingiva, the gums surrounding the root of a tooth, and into the jawbone. A titanium or titanium alloy implant is then fixed within the hole of the jawbone. Over a period of months, the titanium implant fuses to the jawbone through a process called osseointegration. A replacement tooth can then be attached to the implant.
The human jaw comprises two types of bone. A very hard, dense cortical bone layer surrounds an interior of softer cancellous bone. Conventional implantation techniques require several steps involving the use of a series of drill bits to form the hole in the jawbone where the titanium implant will be located. In a first step, a round burr drill bit is used to penetrate the hard outer cortical bone. Second, a standard, fluted twist drill bit is used to create a hole in the softer bone for the implant. Next, a series of holes of increasing diameter are subsequently formed using fluted twist drill bits having increasing diameters, until the desired implant hole size is achieved. Typical diameters for the fluted twist drill bits include, for example, 2.2 mm, 2.8 mm, 3.5 mm, and 4.2 mm. A countersink drill bit, also known as a pilot or step drill bit, may be used to broaden the opening of the hole to the diameter of the next larger fluted twist drill bit. An optional further step of tapering the top of the hole may also be performed using a countersink drill bit, also known as a profile drill bit, depending on how the implant is to be placed within the bone, for example, if the coronal neck of the implant is placed flush with the bone.
Thus, conventional implant procedures require a series of drillings beginning with the cutting of the cortical bone followed by a series of drillings to form and expand the hole. In traditional implant procedures, a total of five or more drill bits, including the burr drill bit, may be used to place a single implant. For patients, especially those requiring multiple implants, the need to use multiple drill bits may result in a very long and uncomfortable multiple-step procedure. Similar multiple-step drilling procedures are also used in other medical procedures that require drilling in bone. Thus, there is a long-felt need in the industry for a tool that can reduce the number of steps and/or drill bits in such procedures.
Although the present disclosure may obviate one or more of the above-mentioned disadvantages, it should be understood that some aspects of the invention might not necessarily obviate one or more of those disadvantages.